By Town Crier Staff Report

Third-graders in the Los Altos School District will go on a history field trip weekdays from 9 a.m. to noon, April 24 through May 18, as part of the study of their community.

The tour will be in three parts. First, they will visit the History House, Gilbert Smith’s home, which is restored as a Depression home of the 1930s. The second part of their tour will be a visit to see pictures of early Los Altos painted by Annie Knapp Fitz.

The third part of the morning in previous years has been a downtown walk. This year, the students will be the first groups to have guided explorations of the new Los Altos History Museum. There, they will learn about the land in Los Altos and Los Altos Hills and how it has been used over the years, from Ohlone times to today’s Silicon Valley businesses.

The museum’s train display is a model of the streets and buildings of the town as it was in the 1930s. The train chugs past models of the many activities of the town and whistles to a stop in front of the train station. Students can discover the family tree of people important to the development and growth of Los Altos, beginning with Paul Shoup, “The Father of Los Altos.”

The three museum docents for the tour are Joan Rutherford, Virginia Carlsen and Gloria Bares.